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India’s Mobile Subscriber Base Slightly Up at 119.1 Crore in September

While all the telecom operators witnessed a decline in their customers base, Reliance Jio was the only operator that added mobile subscribers in September

Mobile users base in India witnessed a marginal increase of 0.2 per cent in the month of September 2018, with only Reliance Jio adding new customers to its base. The telecom subscribers reached 119.1 crore at the end of September, according to the latest report released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

According to the report, “The number of telephone subscribers in the country rose to 1,191.4 million at the end of September this year from 1,189.08 million at the end of August, thus recording a 0.2 per cent monthly growth rate.”

India’s wireless or mobile subscriber base up by 0.21 per cent from 116.69 crore to 116.92 crore in September.

Relienace Jio was the only gainer

While all the telecom operators witnessed a decline in their customers base, Reliance Jio was the only operator that added mobile subscribers in the said month.

In September, Mukesh Ambani-led company added more than 1.3 crore mobile customers, taking its overall subscribers base to 25.2 crore.

The biggest loss was of Vodafone Idea, which lost more than 80 lakh mobile subscribers. However, the number of subscribers for Vodafone and Idea were reported separately for September month.

In the landline segment, BSNL lost 71,800 customers in the month of September. However, Bharti Airtel added 16929 customers and Vodafone gained 7080 new connections in fixed line segment.

The numbers of broadband subscribers in the country increased by 3.89 per cent to 48.1 crore at the end of September, as per the report.

The top five broadband service providers accounted for 97.86 per cent share in the overall broadband subscriber market. These providers include Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd with 252.25 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 99.29 million subscribers, Vodafone with 51.82 million, Idea Cellular (47.90 million) and BSNL (20.12 million).